


Addiction

by threewalls



Series: EnMaverse [1]
Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Age Play, Angst, Blood, Child Abuse, Despair, Drug Addiction, Drugged Sex, Father-Son Relationship, Gods, Guilt, M/M, Male Friendship, Marking, Possession, Supernatural Elements, Tea Ceremony, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-09
Updated: 2005-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:38:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>Muraki Kazutaka was an older habit than the opium Oriya smoked, and one he seemed as unlikely to ever break.</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	Addiction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [olympia_m](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=olympia_m).



> With thanks to lynndyre and mistressrenet for beta.

Oriya sat on one of the Kokakurou's western porches, persistently replacing the flavour of tea with that of opium. He watched the evening sun's weak light on the garden and tried to find some serenity in his surroundings. Across the compound, his guest was currently enjoying a bath in one of the restaurant's more sumptuous facilities, but Oriya tried not to think on him. Muraki was difficulty enough in person.

Muraki Kazutaka was an older habit than the opium Oriya smoked, and one he seemed as unlikely to ever break. Perhaps it was strange to think of a friendship in terms of addiction-- no metaphor is perfect-- but it made Oriya smile to remember that Muraki had once seemed so harmless.

Right from the first moment Oriya saw him, sitting so quietly in the centre of their classroom, Kazutaka had seemed younger than he truly was. His clear, grey eyes and silver hair reminded Oriya of nothing so much as one of his step-father's swords. Oriya would have noticed him for that alone, but Kazutaka had also been so tantalisingly stubborn when prodded as all transfer students are. Kazutaka had chosen to gather bruises rather than submit to the established student hierarchy and he had chosen to conceal them rather than submit to school authorities.

He had not submitted to Oriya's protection, patronising as he had seen it, but Oriya's insistence had made more of an impression on their classmates. Oriya had been, if not precisely a violent child, then one who had been very capable at providing that impression without getting caught.

After a week, Kazutaka had asked Oriya what he wanted from him. Oriya had given a honest, yet incomplete answer, and in time, Kazutaka's toleration had become something approaching friendship. Oriya had only noticed the change when he had sat through several consecutive hours' worth of Kazutaka's rants, content to simply watch how animated Kazutaka could become.

He'd felt so guilty.

Oriya did genuinely wish to protect those who bruised so easily, but Kazutaka's case was complicated. Oriya also wanted to ensure that Kazutaka wore no marks but those Oriya wished to give him.

Of course, Oriya had refrained. The Kokakurou had educated him enough to know something of the darkness within, but he had not expected understanding from another thirteen year old boy. If he had seen something more-- mechanical in Kazutaka's occasional lack of grace, if he had asked after the bruises Kazutaka did not acquire at school--

Ah, but Oriya had been raised too well to ask after the scandals of the Muraki family. So much of their friendship seemed to have stemmed from Oriya's studious indifference to Kazutaka's mysteries, if the teasing, testing hints Kazutaka had continued to drop were any indication.

Occasionally, Oriya had considered dropping hints of his own, perhaps to mention that he had dreamt of a sky raining blood-pink petals. He could never decide whether such references would be too cryptic or too revealing, but always erred on the side of caution. With hindsight, Oriya expected his caution had made little difference-- the scent of opium caught on his hair had probably been hint enough.

They had graduated from high school, but nothing immediately changed. Muraki continued to visit; Oriya continued to host. Perhaps Oriya had hoped Muraki would find one of Kyoto's many universities sufficiently prestigious. Perhaps Muraki had not conceived that Oriya's father would not permit him to leave the city; after all, he had only ever met Oriya's stepfather.

All too soon, it had been only a week before Muraki had been due to leave, and that was that. After a short, practical conversation, they left the Kokakurou in search of a large quantity of alcohol and the privacy to drink it in (Muraki found love hotels amusing).

Late in the evening, how late being a confusing mess of empty bottles, Muraki had set aside his glasses and removed his tie, draping the silk across wrists he held forward toward Oriya. With rare candour in his quicksilver eyes, Muraki had related certain ideas that appealed to him, ideas that required a trustworthy friend. He had asked Oriya to test his limits.

Muraki had said that he trusted Oriya, and Oriya believed him. After all, it had not been so distant that Oriya had refused to continue sparring with Muraki until he promised to dodge.

Oriya had refused Muraki, that night, saying that he did not trust either of them to be sensible when drunk. This was true, and honourable enough that Muraki could stop bluntly staring at him and replace his glasses. Oriya had been too stupidly young; he'd rebelled at the lack of romance in Muraki's proposal. Muraki had not mentioned payment-- that would have been unforgivable-- but he had spoken of his trust in Oriya personally, and in Oriya's 'professional' experience in the same breath.

Oh, but Oriya had wanted--

At the time, Oriya had thought it good that Muraki left for Tokyo to study medicine. He had thought the distance would lessen the temptation.

Muraki's letters never contained any repetition of his offer, or indeed, any implication of it beyond Muraki's continued belief that what Oriya most wanted to hear about was his sex life. He gave detailed accounts of the girls almost desperate to secure the friendship of medical students, and some of his more amusing colleagues. Muraki even went so far as to find himself a suitable woman to marry, presenting every stage of the ongoing saga for Oriya's gratification. (Oriya had been guiltily relieved when the engagement lengthened and languished.) Despite the subject material, Oriya often felt awkwardly touched by Muraki's matter-of-fact correspondence, that regardless of Muraki's ever-widening worldly experience, he still felt a need to write Oriya.

Apparently, Muraki had still felt a need to visit, in spite of Oriya's rebuttal, or perhaps even because of it. Most often, Muraki had been politely distant, but it sometimes had pleased him to assume airs of youth and inexperience. He would demand to be called 'Kazutaka' with nothing more than a certain look in his eyes, a certain gangly awkwardness that Muraki would never permit in his carriage. Muraki was a model guest, but 'Kazutaka' broke tea cups. While Muraki had refused to dodge Oriya's katana until Oriya told him why death frightened him, 'Kazutaka' had simply threatened suicide.

Oh, Oriya was not so simple to believe his friend to be mentally ill. 'Kazutaka' was an affectation, so much so that Muraki never failed to make it apparent. Sometimes, Oriya had wanted to throttle him with desire, at others, simply to end the frustration Muraki Kazutaka brought to his life. It had sickened him to think that there might be so little between them that sex and violence were the only topics on which they conversed, the only arenas in which they held common ground, but even as a self-caricature, 'Kazutaka' was someone Oriya needed to protect, if increasingly from himself.

Time passed, weeks and months. Oriya watched his friend mature and change. And yet, from time to time, Oriya could not help contemplating whether Kazutaka--no, he had only truly been Muraki by then-- was his friend any longer. When the crisis had come, it seemed inexorable, but Oriya could not help imagining that he could have been more prepared.

They had been twenty-five, long past the time when Muraki announced his visits on seasonally appropriate notepaper, but not yet past the point where Muraki's presence in his suites brought no comment from the maids.

Oriya had obliged Muraki with a tea ceremony that day. It had been in the afternoon, as much for contemplation of the creeping, slanting beams of light as to give Oriya time enough to return to the main house before the evening's preparation would require him. Oriya remembered that by whatever name he called himself, Muraki had still paid service to the pretence that Oriya's nights belonged solely to the Kokakurou.

A kiss in the teahouse was a unpardonably gauche breach of etiquette, but from _Kazutaka_ it had also been too sweet for Oriya to deny. For the first time, Oriya had seen not the sly amusement with which Muraki normally offered his self-caricatures, but something approaching patient regard. Oriya knew his own eyes would not contain his fondness; they never did, but for once, he had not minded. The kiss had not been a tactless joke, but a gift.

They had been alone. Perhaps some of Muraki had begun to rub off on him, for Oriya took _Kazutaka_ in his lap, wrapping his arms around the other man's waist. Perhaps Muraki had felt ridiculous-- the difference in their height was slight indeed-- but he could not easily comment. He had already lent _Kazutaka_ his tongue and Oriya occupied them both with kisses.

When Muraki made bold his desire for much more, Oriya had groaned, but counselled patience. He had slipped his fingers beneath _Kazutaka_ 's yukata, sliding the skin-warmed cotton down just far enough to press his lips where _Kazutaka_ 's neck met his collarbone. When the press of Oriya's lips had given way to steady suction and the scrap of his teeth, Muraki had hissed, his hands fisting, jerking in Oriya's long, dark hair.

If it had been the dreamy fantasy it had seemed, _Kazutaka_ would then have shifted his body on Oriya's or made some breathy sound of helpless need; but it had not been that. Muraki had only forced his breathing to mellow, loosened his grip to merely stroke the nape of Oriya's neck and allowed a little more of his weight to fall on Oriya.

Eventually, the light had become too low to sustain the pretence of 'afternoon'. Oriya had loosened his arms and _Kazutaka_ had become less than a memory in Muraki's eyes.

They parted beneath one of the Kokakurou's ubiquitous sakura trees, agreeing to share some form of light supper and then, well, they would see. The purple blossom Oriya had left on _Kazutaka_ 's skin was covered by Muraki's charcoal yukata, but it had seemed no less a promise. Muraki had left to take advantage of the bathing rooms. Oriya had returned to his suites to change his costume to something more suitable for the evening.

A letter from his father had been waiting for him.

From that point, Oriya's memory of the night in question quickly blurred to blissful darkness. Opium was always preferable before waiting on his father's pleasure. However ill-timed he found the demand, Oriya would never refuse his father. Or a god.

It had not been his father's first mention of Muraki, or the first demand to borrow his son's body. Oriya knew enough of the possession to expect to wake up elsewhere in the house with a bittersweet stickiness on his tongue, but before he'd always woken to himself alone.

How could Oriya have expected his own naked loins to the first image he saw upon waking to himself? They were bloody, the floor mats were bloody, and so, he had seen, were the backs of Kazutaka's thighs. Oriya had screamed for servants, for a doctor, for help.

Muraki had retorted that he was doctor enough for any required purpose.

And he--

Oriya should have considered what his father might have wanted with his friend.

Muraki had stretched like a cat, turning his head with a satisfied grin. More blood than most men could afford to shed had seemed to soak completely into Muraki's skin (the _ugly_ , pointless bruise on his neck had faded as well); his skin had seemed to glow. Faster than a mortal man should have been able to move, Muraki had turned himself and sat up eye-to-eye with Oriya. He had reached for Oriya with casual, carnal grace-- until recognition struck him violently. Muraki had frowned, shrugged and sat down again, just outside Oriya's reach. He had made some comment about 'respecting the purity of godhood', perhaps as a prelude to what passed for expressions of regret in Muraki's repertoire, but Oriya had left before he could say anything more.

In the morning after, during breakfast, Muraki had asked Oriya if he had found the consummation of his darker desires easier, when he knew that Muraki did not enjoy his attentions. Or had it simply been more enjoyable?

Oriya had punched Muraki soundly on the jaw, another first.

Muraki had been smiling as he righted his glasses. He caressed his jaw and remarked that the power 'knowing' Oriya's father had given him compensated for a large amount of discomfort. The visible mark of impact faded from his jaw before Oriya's knuckles ceased to ache; he was not as lucky, clearly.

Perhaps Muraki might have taken offence at Oriya's lack of manners, but the frequency of his visits did not change. Oriya's father sent him more frequent letters.

They say nausea is a common side-effect of opium consumption, but it had not been one that bothered Oriya before that night. They also say the more life changes, the more it remains the same; it was surprising just how much he could get used to.

Muraki continued to send letters, and continued to provide a detailed account of his sexual activities for Oriya's perusal. The girls gave way to women, the colleagues gave way to patients, and then 'subjects'-- and Oriya found Muraki's anecdotes less amusing than the good doctor clearly did. Muraki found himself a protégé-- country stock, he said, no one Oriya would have to worry himself about-- a remarkable boy, whose empathic abilities had been 'jump-started' by Muraki's intervention. There were so, so many letters that Oriya read with horrified fascination, desperately searching for something upon which he could reasonably reply.

The minor discretion Muraki displayed in his letters did not carry over to his conversation, in spite of Oriya's adamant refusal to speak about what happened that night, or any other night that followed, on pain of violence.

Except that it increasingly became apparent that violence no longer deterred Muraki. Perhaps it never had, and all Oriya's self control had been wasted effort. It became difficult to remember to keep his temper-- though nothing stopped him as effectively as Muraki's maddeningly patient clear regard.

It seemed that after everything, Muraki still trusted him.

Muraki stopped parading 'Kazutaka' before Oriya, but the abject stupidity Muraki was capable of earnestly undertaking was much, much worse to behold. He cultivated an obsession with a man in a photograph taken when their grandfathers were young. Muraki consorted with those he should not, in ways he should not and left the pieces on Oriya's doorstep. When Muraki tried to discuss the experiments he undertook-- as though there was any way to bend the power he received to any purpose beyond Oriya's father's will-- it made Oriya wish to weep at Muraki's naivety.

Time passed, months and years. Oriya watched his friend transform and descend. And yet, from time to time, Oriya could not help contemplating whether Muraki-- or was it more accurately, Kazutaka-- had ever been his friend.

One did not subject one's friends to the suffering Oriya saw in his dreams, which had only become more detailed with time.

He saw himself unfolding a golden kimono richly embroidered with white dragons. The silk looked richly textured; its sheer weight ought to drag his arms down when he dressed, but it did not. The garment always seemed so familiar, but his memory was never be able to place it amongst the Kokakurou's possessions.

He recognised the room as one of those set aside for private dining, but one that had been stripped of all furniture and decoration. Oriya considered finding an attendant to complain to, but instead, his body moved to the centre of the room where Kazutaka knelt with his head bowed.

Kazutaka wore a royal blue-coloured woman's kimono, long sleeves swallowing his pale, fragile hands. A phoenix curved across his chest from the left shoulder blade, its tail feathers brushing the line of Kazutaka's hips. (Kazutaka knelt with his legs slightly spread.) Oriya recognised this kimono; it should have been in storage. It had been his mother's before she had married his step-father.

One of Oriya's hands lifted Kazutaka's chin, sliding to the pulse point. Kazutaka's eyes were still metal, but they were also liquid. He looked so young, without his glasses, his smirk just a little shallow, as though he had not yet learnt to perfect it. Kazutaka's pulse raced; Oriya knew his friend was both afraid and excited. In spite of himself, Oriya also know that this Kazutaka was too genuinely eager to be merely one of Muraki's self-caricatures.

Whenever Kazutaka spoke in the dreams, he addressed Oriya by his father's name with a voice that was still breaking.

His father had known, must have known of Oriya's interest in Kazutaka, but these dreams were not a gift. Oriya knew what his father was capable of.

It was difficult to say how long that single touch lasted, but it was all the gentleness his dream permitted. His hand gripped Kazutaka's throat, forcing him back to the mat while Kazutaka scrambled to painfully arrange his legs from underneath him. His kimono split open, flashes of red and blue and white. Oriya tore through his own obi-- an improbability for human strength-- but that could not matter because his cock was then pressing through Kazutaka's entrance. Nothing mattered but that clenching heat and Kazutaka jerking beneath him.

There was no artistry, no subtlety in their joining, but to Oriya's eternal shame, that did not matter either. His body made no sounds, no speech or grunts. It moved to the stroke of a metronome, never faster, never slow, and yet he was never quite prepared.

Kazutaka was so tight--

Kazutaka screamed and screamed and screamed, until he coughed himself hoarse and Oriya's grip tightened; coughs were inelegant. Kazutaka's face went pink and then red. He fought, or tried to, but human nails cannot mark a god's flesh. Mortal limbs cannot throw off immortal strength.

Perhaps because it was a dream, Oriya might have suggested Kazutaka enjoy his degradation; he never did that. Muraki might have borne the act with more dignity and less noise, but neither he nor Kazutaka could have enjoyed the painful submission Oriya forced upon his body.

Oriya could never smell the silk, but he smelt the blood. He could taste the blood-- not his, not his father's, but Kazutaka's-- and his vision would wash red and dizzy before the end.

When he woke, Oriya always felt guilty. No matter that the opium made him weak; his sheets were always, always soiled. Oriya did not know how much of the dreams were memory, how much invention, but he did not want to know.

There were so few choices left to him.

Tonight, he entered his suites, exchanging his pipe for the golden silk draped across his bed. He felt the darkness gathering inside him, a chill blankness behind his eyes, a numbness in his limbs. There was a letter on his desk, but he did not even bother to read it before leaving. When his father wanted to possess his body to encourage Kazutaka, the letter was always the same, word for word.

Oriya was soothed by the repetitiveness of it all. He did not hold much faith in Muraki's explanations, that 'avenues of power' once driven were most easily regained, but he knew the hypnotism of a catalogue of petty details. The tea ceremony, the bath, the pair of kimono that never seemed to tear or stain-- even without the opium, Oriya would be almost numbed by twin demons of memory and fate.

And yet, he resented the contractual obligations of past friendship. He resented being made to remember; to prepare not a body, but his friend for another to use; to permit Kazutaka's pale, pure flesh be defiled by that cold touch. He resented being made to enjoy Kazutaka's suffering by the perversity of his blood.

But, most of all, Oriya resented his own lack of character, that he had not found the strength to become 'Mibu-san', but remained forever as the ghost of their childhood, trapped within a shell he no longer attempted to control. No amount of opium obscured that however much an outrage of fate, he had never acted to prevent it.

Inside the room, he could see Muraki dressing into his own costume. It would take time as Oriya refused to involve the servants in _this_. Muraki's body was no less lovely for his age; Oriya's hands was no less eager to touch it after all this time. The bruise on his neck was always black now, not merely purple-- a last mark of the futility of Oriya's position.

Muraki turned in his wrapping, catching sight of Oriya's form shrouded by the darkness of the doorway.

"Lord EnMa?" Muraki asked, his voice carrying the barest shiver of terror unsuppressed.

Oriya realised that his legs had taken him to the room before the opium had taken complete hold; how awkward, he was clearly too early this time.

"Not yet." Oriya stepped into the room. "But, soon."


End file.
